


Lie To Me

by zulu



Series: Lie To Me [1]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: 06-12, M/M, house/wilson fest, summer of ketamine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-30
Updated: 2006-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:02:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's terribly simple. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie To Me

The hotel is ridiculously ostentatious. House slows to a jog, darting around brass-railed luggage carts and valets dressed like organ-grinders' monkeys, and walks straight past the front desk with a jaunty wave and a smile that would warn anyone who knows him that he's up to something. In his shorts and ratty t-shirt, his hair plastered down with sweat, he's completely out of place in a lobby full of potted ferns and red velvet settees. His running shoes are probably the only thing in the same price range as anything the hotel's guests would ever consider worthwhile. The trick is confidence, and that's something House has never been short of when he's on a mission. He sticks an arm between the elevator's closing doors and climbs in when they open again. The other occupants' eyes slide politely away from him, and noses twitch at his stink from five miles of running. He's only sorry he has to get out before the last of them, but the game is afoot. He finds Wilson's room and pounds on the door like a bellhop bucking to lose his job, and says in his most ridiculous British accent, "Room service."

A few seconds later, Wilson opens the door, his wallet already in hand, the sap. "I didn't order any--"

House pushes the door in, forcing Wilson to stumble back or be run over. "No, but you should. I'm starving." He sees the minibar and grins wolfishly.

"House, get away from there--"

If Wilson expects House to _listen_, then he hasn't been paying very good attention for the last decade or so. House snaps open the door and nudges aside miniature bottles of liqueur to take what he wants. "Ooh, giant Toblerone," he says, holding up his find. Wilson lunges forward, but House dodges him neatly, leaping over an end table and almost upsetting a wing chair as he escapes. He waves the chocolate like a red flag in front of a bull, but Wilson's already resigned, blowing his hair out of his face with an impatient sigh and putting his hands on his hips. Boring. House tosses the triangular tube at him, and Wilson makes the catch after fumbling once. "Oh, fine," he says, robbed of his fun. "It's dark chocolate, anyway."

He prowls around the edges of the room, looking for any sign that Wilson's doing more than living out of a suitcase. Wilson watches him, apparently at a loss to explain why he's there. His button-down is open at the throat, no tie in sight, and his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. He looks pretty comfortable, but the room itself is still bare and empty. Wilson left more of himself around House's couch than he has here. House thinks that's a pretty good sign.

New Jersey is in the middle of a typical summer, which means hot and muggy, and the run's left House parched and sticky. He lifts the lid of the ice bucket and finds it full but mostly melted. Ignoring Wilson's yelp about wet floors, he upends the ice water over his head, shuddering at the chill against his flushed skin. It feels incredible, and he smiles. It's not the best he's felt since he got his leg back, but it's not the best he's going to feel before he leaves here, either. House shakes his head, blinking water out of his eyes, and licks the salt from his upper lip.

Wilson squeezes the bridge of his nose. "How did you find me?" he asks. He's still a few steps behind, but catching up in the careful, deliberate way of his that covers all the ground House likes to leap past when he's jumping to conclusions.

"Your mail comes to my place," House tells him. "The tasteful brown paper packages--"

"You opened my Visa bill."

House waves aside mail fraud like the irrelevancy it is. "I called ahead. You can blame the manager of this dump if my message didn't get passed along. Something about obscene phone calls."

Wilson sets the Toblerone on the desk as if by placing it just so, he can hold on to the ragged edges of his patience, and grabs a hand towel to drop on the puddle House is standing in. "I don't suppose it would do any good to ask what you're doing here?"

"Housewarming party," House says. "I was going to buy you something kitschy, but it looks like your quota of tacky knick-knacks has already been filled." He lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe his face dry--or slightly less wet, anyway--and then decides to move things along a little quicker, and strips the tee off completely.

"I've been living here for months," Wilson says. "You're a bit late." He's not looking House in the face, and he's fighting a blush.

House nods sadly. "Pretty pathetic," he agrees. He rubs himself down with the thin cotton and then tosses the t-shirt in a heap near the door.

Wilson's flushing a deeper red, now, but only about half of that is annoyance. "Oh, because your couch is so much better?"

"Yes," House says, giving enough of an eye-roll to leave the _duh_ implied but unspoken. "Then this whole thing would've been so much simpler."

"What...'whole thing'?" Wilson asks. 'Small mammal trapped by a python' is a good look on him, House thinks.

He grins, even hungrier than before, and takes a few steps so that he can lean close and breathe, "_Sex_," in Wilson's ear, like it's at once the most obvious and most dangerous thing in the world. Which is pretty much exactly what it is.

Wilson dumbfounded is not an unusual sight. Wilson gaping like a landed fish and sucking back air like his lungs have forgotten how to absorb oxygen, blushing and wide-eyed and stammering, is a little more rare but very pretty. House quirks an eyebrow at him as lasciviously as he knows how--he's been practicing on Cuddy for years, and he's gotten _very_ good at it--and then says, loudly, "I'm going to take a shower," since Wilson seems broken and not likely to respond any time soon. He toes off his runners and peels off his socks, dumping them by his t-shirt, and walks to the bathroom. He hooks a thumb under the waistband of his shorts and drops them over his hips as he swings the door shut behind him. Wilson's facing the right direction to have gotten a good look, which was entirely the point.

House lets the water heat up until it runs just short of scalding, and the pressure feels like needles against his skin. Perfect. He lets his head fall forward as the spray massages his shoulders. He makes bets with himself as to how long Wilson's going to stand outside the bathroom sputtering and indignant.

"Okay, great joke, you got me," Wilson says, barging in through the door that House purposefully left unlocked. "Go ahead, you can point and laugh now."

"Not a joke," House singsongs, grabbing the soap and lathering up. He picks up the shampoo bottle next--the little hotel bottles are nowhere in sight, but of course Wilson brought his own. "_Moisturizing_ shampoo?" he asks of the room generally. "Are you kidding me?" He squirts a dab into his hand and sniffs it gingerly. "Oh, good thing it's _mango_, Wilson, because that totally restores your manliness."

"I'm not gay, House," Wilson says.

"Liar!" House yells over the rush of the shower. He can hear Wilson stomping around, pacing.

"I'm--I don't know where you'd even get that idea--"

House sticks his head around the shower curtain, his hair slicked into a shampoo mohawk. Wilson leans against the sink and glares at him, his arms crossed. It's not just the growing steam in the bathroom that's turning him so red under the collar, either. "Straight men don't usually walk in on their good buddies in the shower," House points out.

"I'm leaving," Wilson says. "I'm walking out of here right now."

"Bring back sandwiches," House calls, ducking back into the shower and rinsing off. "Or I eat every last macadamia nut in the minibar!"

"You wouldn't--"

"You're still out there," House interrupts. He turns off the shower and sticks his hand out, and Wilson dumps a towel on his arm. House wraps it around his waist and steps out. "Besides, I never said _you_ were gay. I said _I_ wanted us to have sex."

"What?" Wilson asks, startled again and sounding guilty as hell as House pushes into his personal space. He's backing away and trying to get closer both at once. "You're not even attracted to me."

House rolls his eyes in earnest this time. "Of _course_ I'm attracted to you!" he says, annoyed, and brushes past Wilson into the hotel room again.

Wilson clutches at the air in front of him, but he follows. "Since _when_?" he demands.

"Well, give or take a few months, how long have we known each other?"

"And you never thought to _tell_ me?"

"This conversation is a pretty good example of why."

"But--ten years--you--" Wilson shakes his head, stumbling over his words again.

"Let me see if I can spell it out for you," House says, and points back and forth between them. "Married. Stacy. Married. Leg. _Married_\--"

"You're hitting on me because I'm divorced?"

"Well, I wasn't going to bring up those painful memories if you didn't, but--"

"House. Stop. Just--" Wilson holds up his hands as if he's warding off an attack. "You haven't wanted to see me since you woke up from the surgery. You're never home, you run everywhere like you're training for a marathon, and now you just walk in here and expect me to have sex with you? Where the hell is this coming from?"

House stalks forward--it's so incredibly _easy_; it doesn't hurt at all--and watches Wilson swallow and glance to one side, as if there's something in the room that might save him. He doesn't duck when House leans in, and his breathing is rough and uneven. "Are you seriously going to try to convince me that you're not interested?" House asks.

"That's...not the point." House walks him backwards into the desk, and there's nowhere for him to go. Wilson clearly doesn't have any clue where to put his hands, and they end up on the desk behind him, propping him up.

"Hmm." House moves closer. He doesn't have to lean on anything, and for once it leaves him with two hands free. He pops open the buttons on Wilson's shirt with one and works his belt loose with the other. The towel is doing pretty much nothing to hide his interest, but fortunately the same can be said of Wilson's pants. House pauses then, his hand hovering just above Wilson's growing erection; he can feel its heat on his palm. "Tell me to stop," he dares.

"Tell me why now," Wilson pushes. He's watching House warily and his eyes are dark. House smiles and lets his hand go where it wants. Wilson breathes in harshly and his eyes close in an expression that's almost pain. "Jesus."

"Good?" House asks absently, concentrating on the deliberately light brush of his fingertips. The look on Wilson's face is answer enough, and House moves his hand slowly, brushing past fabric until he's gripping Wilson through his boxers.

Wilson's head dips forward, his bangs falling across his forehead, his lips parting slightly as he pants. House's heart races, and he shifts again until he's pressing Wilson bodily into the table, his hand trapped between them. Wilson's on the edge of a moan, he _knows_ it, and House wants to hear that sound more than anything.

Instead, when Wilson looks up again, his eyes heavy and half-lidded with pleasure, he says, "This is about your leg, isn't it?"

House squeezes tighter. "Oh, would you _stop_," he says. "You're not my shrink."

"Probably a good thing," Wilson says, gasping. "Since I really hope you've never given your shrink a handjob like this."

"Not like _this_," House agrees. He pulls Wilson's shirt off his shoulders until it's trapped on his wrists behind him, and grips his shoulder with his free hand, then slides it down over his ribs, running his thumb across Wilson's nipple in the process.

"It's the same as your running--"

"Oh, yeah, I can run and jump. Look, Jimmy! No strings! I'm a real boy!" House pushes his hips forward in evidence.

Wilson laughs breathlessly, but it's bitter. "You just want to work up a sweat. Sex without pain."

There's got to be something useful for getting him in the game, so House burrows close enough to drag his stubble across Wilson's neck, and then turns slightly and bites him sharply.

"Ow! Fuck, House--"

"That was the plan, if only one of us could _shut up_." He shoves at Wilson's pants and boxers, until they fall around his ankles.

"Fine." Wilson shakes his head and strips his shirt the rest of the way off, and steps out of his pants. He's left wearing just socks, which looks ridiculous, but sex usually is at some point, so House only grins and waits for him to get them off. He sits on the side of the bed--wide and too soft, with the generic scratchy blankets of hotel rooms everywhere--and when Wilson walks towards him, he's definitely not ridiculous anymore. He rips off House's towel down and House's breath hitches without his permission, because that's it; he's exposed, his scar running over his thigh like an angry roadmap.

Wilson's eyes flicker to House's leg, but his expression--intent, aroused, the kind of thing House hasn't seen anywhere except in his stupid adolescent fantasies until now--doesn't change, and if he can ignore it then he's doing better than House's last two dates, who couldn't shut up about it even if he paid them. Which he did.

Wilson pushes him down on to the bed, sideways, all warm skin and weight and his dick pressed against House's. Wilson looks like he's going to try and kiss him, so House turns his head to the side and mutters, "I wasn't getting into this with half a body."

Wilson freezes for an instant, and then grunts softly. "Yeah, well, what if the ketamine wears off?"

"What if it doesn't?"

"Wait, what?" Wilson's breath huffs against his shoulder, and he starts moving again--little nudging thrusts that are going to drive House crazy, building into slow lazy waves of pleasure from the base of his spine through his entire body. "_You're_ the optimist?"

House snorts and shoves at Wilson's shoulder, rolling him over until he's positioned the way House likes, and he can lean in and press his tongue against Wilson's chest and then move lower. "You expected me to wait and see?" he asks, kneeling over him just because he can. God, it's so good; he doesn't have to worry, he doesn't have to compensate, because it doesn't hurt _at all_.

"No--but--" Wilson's middle-aged soft around the stomach, and slightly ticklish, but his voice is hoarse and desperate when he says, "_House_," and that's all that really matters. House sucks him off, holding Wilson down at the hip with one hand, the other cupping his balls and pressing a finger against Wilson's perineum in a completely different rhythm than his mouth moves. Wilson's thighs tense next to his head and House lifts his head so he can watch Wilson's face while he finishes him off with three rough strokes of his hand.

He rests his weight on his thighs--both of them--and thrusts into the mess on Wilson's stomach. Wilson's hand moves down and grips him, at first too loose and then tightening almost painfully, and House comes so hard he can't breathe, because it's pure pleasure, nothing else.

He collapses beside Wilson, face down on the rumpled sheets, and he thinks vaguely about taking a Vicodin, except he hasn't wanted or needed a pill for over a month, and he's already so boneless that it would be pointless to get high. Wilson shifts next to him, and then there's a hand on his back, resting in the dip of his spine.

"House," he says. "The ketamine's not going to wear off."

House doesn't reply, but he can't help tensing. It's only been a month. The studies he's read and reread don't give any guarantees.

"I don't care about your leg," Wilson says, quietly enough that he could be talking to himself. "You didn't have to wait until now."

That shows how much Wilson knows. House snorts derisively, but it's muffled by the pillow. Wilson sighs, and House catalogues it easily without even looking: he's not going to push yet, but he's not going to leave it alone, either.

House slides into sleep and in the morning it's the first time he's not surprised to wake up without pain.

***

There's nothing better than being able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, without once calculating how much he's going to pay for it later. He runs, golfs, nags Wilson into a game of tennis that he wins handily and rubs in Wilson's face for the rest of the day. He takes up skateboarding. He tells Wilson he's going sky-diving, just to see the look on his face.

Wilson says, "You're seriously going to jump out of an airplane?" and then arches his back and breathes, "Oh fuck."

They're in his hotel room, again: the air-conditioning is set close to frigid but House is sweating anyway, pushing his way deeper into Wilson's ass, which is slick and hot and tight. House fucks him like it's going out of style, and Wilson doesn't even pretend to say no anymore.

"Don't worry," House says, doing his best to drain anything resembling rational thought out of Wilson's head. "I'll remember to pack my parachute instead of an anvil."

"Why bother?" Wilson's lips quirk the way they do when he's trying not to smile, or, House has learned more recently, trying not to show just how close he is to coming. "The way you've been going, you probably think you can fly."

And then he clenches down, and House really is flying.

***

The day his leg hurts again, it's nothing at all, just a spasm; but the ache in his thigh lasts into the evening. When Wilson calls and asks if he's coming over, House puts him off with an excuse he doesn't even remember five minutes later.

He doesn't know how much later it is when he hears a key turn in his lock. He looks up from his whiskey and watches Wilson walk in. Wilson's eyes are smouldering, and he doesn't say anything at first, just closes the door and locks it behind him.

"What the hell is going on, House?" he asks, yanking his light jacket off his shoulders and tossing it over the arm of the couch.

"Can't go a night without me?" House asks. "I'll have to try and tone down the sheer animal magnetism."

"Come off it," Wilson says. "There's something wrong."

House swirls the last of the whiskey in his glass and then swallows it. It burns pleasantly in his throat. He's not drunk, but he's beginning to remember why he likes drugs so much. "My leg hurt," he says. It doesn't matter and it was nothing but he says it anyway.

"Your leg is fine!"

"And you'd know because--what? It's attached to you?"

Wilson shakes his head and makes an exasperated noise. "You haven't had a single problem in two months--"

"And half that time was spent fucking you, so you think you're an expert."

"Fucking _with_ me seems a little more accurate, don't you think?" Wilson asks, and he's angry now, his fingers flexing halfway into fists against his thighs.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You never intended this to go on if the ketamine wore off."

"Yeah, I didn't want to inflict cripple sex on you, I'm a real monster."

"You weren't thinking about me at all. You've spent the summer thinking you're above everybody, that there aren't any consequences. Well, guess what? I don't care if your leg hurts--"

"Funny, that's what I care most about."

"--because I care about _you_."

"Good luck with that. I hear on pretty good authority that that doesn't tend to work out."

"You're the one who changed our friendship, House." Wilson runs both hands through his hair, leaving it mussed and tousled, the way he looks after sex, and that is not fair. "I was happy with how things were."

House stands up, and it's lopsided because he's anticipating again, waiting for the pain to throw off his balance. It doesn't come, and he hates the relief he feels. There's nothing he can do if his leg collapses under him so it's no use feeling good that it hasn't yet. "Yeah, I changed it. I got a month. It's over."

"I'm not going back to the way things were--"

"Thanks for that, Barbara Streisand." House pushes forward. "Too bad." He's still able enough to kick Wilson out of his apartment and stick the chain on the door.

Before he can, Wilson grabs him by the arm and pulls him down, and if the habit of expecting pain comes back all too easily then it's not exactly easy kicking his newfound Wilson habit either, and House lets him.

Except this time, Wilson kisses him.

They haven't done this before. Blowjobs and handjobs and fucking they've managed, two idiotic midlife crises crashing into each other, but this is new and House doesn't know what to do. He tries to pull back but Wilson makes a sound that's almost defeated, and he can't.

Stacy was the last person he kissed, and even when House dipped his head and tasted her mouth for a second first time, he knew it was over. It's the same with Wilson, and House knows this is the last time even if Wilson wants to deny it. He got his life back for two months, one summer, and he's used up whatever good karma he had coming his way, which was never much.

Kissing Wilson feels deeply, suspiciously right, and House moves his head again, but this time Wilson follows the move and he's trapped again. Wilson opens his mouth and then it's House's turn to make a noise, a plea that he's never going to turn into words.

It's not that the sex is softer this time, or that it's better. It's that they're in House's apartment instead of Wilson's still-empty hotel room, and House has been imagining _this_ for years: Wilson spread across against his messy sheets, his mouth swollen with beard burn, and House is free to kiss meaning into whatever part of him he wants. They don't bother with fucking, because the lube and condoms are all at the hotel; it's just skin on skin, pressure and time and sweat-slick longing.

It doesn't hurt at all, except that it does.

House is half-asleep when Wilson tries to sneak out of bed without waking him. Wilson's had years of practice at it, but House sleeps on pins and needles, and the least shift in weight is enough to bring him up out of a confused dream.

He watches Wilson's back in the dim light, the ripple of muscles as he bends forward to find his clothes, the spray of freckles near his shoulders. Wilson slips his shirt on and for a second he's silhouetted in the doorway, and then he's gone.

The day that House's leg hurts again, it's just a spasm, it's nothing at all; he doesn't even bother with an aspirin to dull the pain. It's pointless anyway. House finally knows there are worse things to lose than his leg.


End file.
